Remedial Qualities of Common Fruits

A table giving the remedial qualities of the common fruits and vegetables is herewith appended: —

Celery for any form of rheumatism and nervous dyspepsia.

Lettuce for insomnia.

Water-cress for scurvy.

Onions are almost the best nervine known. Use for insomnia, for coughs and colds, and as a complexion curer. Eaten every other day, they soon have a clearing and whitening effect on the complexion.

Spinach for gravel.

Asparagus to induce perspiration.

Carrots for suffering from asthma.

Turnips for nervous disorders and for scurvy.

Raw beef proves of great benefit to persons of frail constitution, and to those suffering from consumption. It is chopped fine, seasoned with salt, and heated by placing it in a dish in hot water. It assimilates rapidly and affords the best nourishment.

Eggs contain a large amount of nutriment in a compact quickly available form. Beaten up raw with sugar they are used to clear and strengthen the voice. With sugar and lemon juice the beaten white of egg is used to relieve hoarseness.

Cranberries for erysipelas are used externally as well as internally.

Cranberries eaten raw are one of the finest tonics and appetizers known.

In cases of yellow or typhoid fever, cranberries are almost indispensable as a tonic and to assist in clearing the system of the harmful bacteria.

For some forms of dyspepsia there is no more simple and effective remedy than raw cranberries. Carry a supply in the pocket and eat them frequently during the day. They will cure headache as well.

People who are subject to biliousness will find that with cranberries a part of each day’s food they will be free from such attacks.

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, healing and nourishing.

Fresh ripe fruits are excellent for purifying the blood and toning up the system.

Sour oranges are highly recommended for rheumatism.

Watermelon for epilepsy and for yellow fever.

Lemons for feverish thirst in sickness, biliousness, low fevers, rheumatism, colds, coughs, liver complaints, etc.

Blackberries for diarrhoea.

Tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver, a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and for indigestion.

Tomatoes are invaluable in all conditions in which the use of calomel is indicated.

Figs are aperient and wholesome. They are said to be valuable as a food for those suffering from cancer. They are used externally as well as internally.

Bananas are useful as a food for those suffering from chronic diarrhoea.

Pie-plant is wholesome and aperient; is excellent for rheumatic sufferers and useful for purifying the blood.

Peanuts for indigestion. They are especially recommended for corpulent diabetes. Peanuts are made into a wholesome and nutritious soup, are browned and used as a coffee, are eaten as a relish simply baked, or are prepared and served as salted almonds.

Apples are useful in nervous dyspepsia; they are nutritious, medicinal and vitalizing; they aid digestion, clear the voice, correct the acidity of the stomach, are valuable in rheumatism, insomnia, and liver trouble. An apple contains as much nutriment as a potato, in a pleasanter, more wholesome form.

Grapes dissolve and dislodge gravel and calculi, and bring the stomach and bowels to a healthy condition.

Ripe pineapples have been put upon the list of foods especially healthful for persons troubled with indigestion, the juice being especially valuable in such cases. Shred with a silver fork, and reject all the indigestible core. The juice of a ripe pineapple is an almost invaluable remedy for diphtheria, the acid seeming to dissolve the strangling growth in the throat.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

For Children Teething

Tie a quarter of a pound of wheat flour in a thick cloth, and boil it in one quart of water for three hours; then remove the cloth and expose the flour to the air or heat until it is hard and dry; grate from it, when wanted, one tablespoonful, which put into half a pint of new milk, and stir over the fire until it comes to a boil, when add a pinch of salt and a tablespoonful of cold water, and serve. This gruel is excellent for children afflicted with summer complaint. Or, brown a tablespoonful of flour in the oven or on top of the stove on a baking-tin; feed a few pinches at a time to a child, and it will often check a diarrhoea. The tincture of “kino” — of which from ten to thirty drops, mixed with a little sugar and water in a spoon, and given every two or three hours, is very efficacious and harmless — can be procured at almost any druggist’s. Tablespoon doses of pure cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt, has cured when all else failed.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Blackberry Cordial for Diarrhoea

Boil together four pounds of white sugar and one gallon of blackberry juice ; remove the scum, then add one ounce of cloves, one ounce of cinnamon, and four or five grated nutmegs. When boiled sufficiently, let it settle ; strain, and add one pint of brandy. Dose for a child, one tablespoonful ; for an adult, one wineglassful.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Slippery-Elm Bark Tea

Break the bark into bits, pour boiling water over it, cover and let it infuse until cold. Sweeten, ice, and take for summer disorders, or add lemon-juice and drink for a bad cold.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Rice Water for Diarrhoea

Put one cup of rice into the frypan, and stir over the fire until it is a dark brown. If convenient, after it has been browned, pound it. Take half a cup of the rice, and pour over it nearly one quart of water, and let it stand on the stove twenty minutes; then strain, and add boiled milk and sugar to taste. Drink freely of this.

Source: Camp Cookery, Maria Parloa

Dysentery Specific

(Particularly for bloody dysentery in Adults and Children.)

Take one pound gum arabic, one ounce gum tragacanth, dissolved in two quarts of soft water, and strained. Then take one pound of cloves, half a pound of cinnamon, half a pound allspice, and boil in two quarts of soft water, and strain. Add it to the gums, and boil all together over a moderate fire, and stir into it two pounds of loaf sugar. Strain the whole again when you take it off, and when it is cool, add to it half a pint sweet tincture rhubarb, and a pint and a half of best brandy. Cork it tight in bottles, as the gums will sour, if exposed. If corked properly it will keep for years.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie

Cure for Diarrhea

The following is said to be an excellent cure for the above distressing complaint: Laudanum, two ounces; spirits of camphor, two ounces; essence of peppermint, two ounces; Hoffman’s anodyne, two ounces; tincture of cayenne pepper, two drachms; tincture of ginger, one ounce. Mix all together. Dose, teaspoonful in a little water, or a half teaspoonful repeated in an hour afterward in a tablespoonful of brandy. This preparation, it is said, will check diarrhea in ten minutes, and abate other premonitory symptoms of cholera immediately. In cases of cholera, it has been used with great success to restore reaction by outward application.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie

Diarrhea

A teaspoon of flour mixed in a tumbler of water and taken at intervals of the day will cure diarrhea.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Diarrhea

Usually caused by indigestion, impure water, etc. Home remedies are raw flour and water paste; a raw egg in a cup of hot tea; spiced syrup of rhubarb.

Give a dose of castor oil to clear the digestive tract of the irritating material. If there is much pain, keep abdomen warm with flannel and hot-water bag. If a small child, restrict diet to barley water and white of egg in water.

Give adults milk and other liquid foods. If persistent, see doctor.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

Summer Complaint or Diarrhoea

In early stages unless alarming symptoms appear, give the child or patient a generous dose of castor oil and keep patient on a light diet for a day or two or refrain from eating at all for twelve hours. If passages are green and full of mucous membrane call a physician immediately as delay may be fatal. Whites of two eggs mixed with a little water sipped frequently is often healing also to stomach and bowels.

Source: Civic League Cook Book